Exhibits offend

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American Indians are offended by the display and storage of their ancestors' bones in museums and want them returned.

Bill Tall Bull, a cultural leader and tribal historian from the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in south-eastern Montana says he has enlisted the help of politicians including the Senate's senator who plans to introduce a bill to help the recovery of bones and sacred objects.

Indian leaders say when a white person's grave is dug up it is called grave robbing but when an Indian burial ground is tampered with it is considered archeology.

Tall Bull says he discovered skeletal remains in hundreds of wooden boxes in a storage room of the Smithsonian museum on a trip to Washington last year. The museum says it has 34,00 remains, of which 14,500 are of Indians.

The proposed bill would establish a commission to mediate dispute between tribes and museums and would set up a Native American centre in the Library of Congress to help Indians conserve artifacts.

Some museum officials oppose the legislation saying disputes should be solved locally. However the Smithsonian has promised to return remains that can be identified to the tribes involved.